Globally, terrorism is on the rise - but little of it occurs in Western countries

If it seems like terrorist attacks are happening more and more often, it's because they are.

Last year marked the biggest annual rise in deaths caused by terrorism, with more than 32,000 people killed in attacks around the world.

The Institute for Economics and Peace has compiled its annual Global Terrorism Index and looked at the figures from 2000 to the end of 2014. It found terrorism is rising dramatically and private citizens are increasingly the targets.

But only a tiny fraction of terrorist attacks occur in Western nations, and of those, only one in five is perpetrated by Islamic extremists.

How many people are killed by terrorist attacks?

In 2014, 32,685 people were killed in terrorist attacks. That's an 80 per cent increase on the year before, when 18,111 people were killed.

The number of people dying due to terrorism has increased dramatically in the past 15 years. But it's still significantly below the global homicide rate; 13 times more people die from homicide than from terrorism.

Who is being killed in terrorist attacks?

The vast majority of terrorist attacks occur in five countries: Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria.

Although there are more terrorist attacks in Iraq, there are more deaths in Nigeria, where Boko Haram and Funali operate.

Boko Haram is the deadliest terrorist group in the world, surpassing the killing of Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East. (Most of the deaths in Syria are accounted for as battlefield deaths.)

Are Western countries bearing the brunt of terrorist attacks?

No. Averaged over the past 15 years, only 4.4 per cent of attacks and 2.6 per cent of deaths were in Western countries.

However, attacks in Western countries are among the deadliest. Four major terrorists attacks (the September 11 attacks in the US, the Madrid train bombings, the Norwegian massacre and the London bombings) account for 90 per cent of those deaths.